Banana & Cardamom Ice Cream from Scandilicious

It would be easy to dismiss my friend Sig’s new book as jumping on the Scandi band wagon, but it’d be completely wrong to do so. Since June 2008 Sig has been sharing the joy’s of Scandinavian cooking via her blog, Scandilicious.

Describing her heritage as Scandinavian-English-American-Irish-German-Jewish-Lithuanian (and born to a Norwegian father and English-American mother) Sig is well known for sharing an eclectic range of recipes with a distinctly Scandinavian theme. Having studied food anthropology, graduated from Leith’s and been one of the students that contributed to Fiona Beckett’s The Ultimate Student Cookbook, she has brought all her experience into her first solo book Secrets of Scandinavian Cooking… Scandilicious .

Wonderfully warm, just like the author in person, Scandilicious is an attractive and engaging book. I particularly like the use of sketched illustrations by artist Liam Wales, though there are plenty of photographs of the finished recipes too. It really has its own style, and is not at all like any of the other Scandinavian cookbooks on my shelf.

There are many tempting recipes such as a range of fruit compotes and jams (to go with home made yoghurt amongst other treats), banana and cinnamon crispbread, raspberry and rhubarb lemonade, vanilla and sour cream waffles, a whole range of open and closed sandwich ideas, spiced blueberry juice, mor monsen (Norwegian lemon, currant and almond cake), kladdkaka (Swedish gooey chocolate cake), mustikkapiirakka (Finnish blueberry tart), Bergen fish chowder, chilled cucumber and borage soup, beetroot and ginger soup, pickled herring, Janssons frestelse (Swedish anchovy and potato gratin), lemon and nutmeg krumkaker (cornets) and lingonberry jelly. And that’s only a selection – there are many, many more appealing recipes!

This banana and cardamom ice cream is very simple but quite delicious.

Scandilicious’ Banana & Cardamom Ice Cream

Feel free to substitute grated nutmeg or ground cinnamon or clove if you fancy a different flavour combination. If you’re making this for children, you may wish to omit the alcohol.

Ingredients

  • 300 ml whipping cream
  • 1 tsp freshly ground cardamom
  • 4 small ripe bananas
  • 50 g fructose (or 75g caster sugar)
  • 1 tbsp rum or brandy
  • salt

Notes

I had only brown cardamoms, most commonly used for savoury cooking in my house, rather than the smaller green cardamoms used for savoury and sweet. As the recipe didn’t specify, I ground the seeds from within from these enormous pods. It gave a nutty, woody flavour alongside the usual cardamom perfume; it worked really well.

Instructions

  • Put the cream and the ground cardamom in a small saucepan, bring to a simmer and cook for 1-2 minutes before removing from the heat. Allow to infuse for 30 minutes and cool completely. 
  • Once the cream has cooled, blitz the bananas and fructose (or sugar) in a blender or mash together by hand. Add the cardamom-infused cream, alcohol and salt to the sweetened banana and either blitz or mash together, as appropriate. 
  • Taste to check the sweetness and add more fructose (or sugar) if necessary – the mixture should be slightly sweeter than you want the final ice cream to be, as it will taste less sweet once frozen. 
  • The next step is to freeze the ice cream. I used my loan Gaggia machine, but the recipe also provides instructions for those who don’t have a machine. 

The ice cream is delicious and the addition of cardamom and brandy to the banana is wonderful; it works really well.

 

 

If you decide to buy this book after reading our content, please consider clicking through our affiliate link, located within the post and in the footnote below.

Scandilicious: Secrets of Scandinavian Cooking is published by SaltYard (RRP £20). Kavey Eats received a review copy from SaltYard.

Please leave a comment - I love hearing from you!
7 Comments to "Banana & Cardamom Ice Cream from Scandilicious"

  1. tori

    It's such a beautiful book. I can't wait to try that ice cream- perhaps sandwiched between some of the cookies…

    Reply
  2. miss south

    I made an impulse purchase of the book yesterday! And wanted to berate Amazon for not letting me pre-order the next one (no pressure Signe!)

    This sounds great. I always have over ripe banana stashed in the freezer and get bored of just making banana bread. Problem solved!

    Reply
  3. Kavey

    Tori, it's a lovely simple recipe and I really like the addition of cardamom to banana. I'll try the nutmeg variation next time!

    Miss South, excellent, I hope you enjoy the ice cream too. 🙂

    Reply
  4. chloe

    I have this beautiful book at home and haven't had a chance to cook from it yet but this ice cream is high up on the list along with the delicious looking cardamom and marzipan buns!

    Reply
  5. Pia

    Mmmm, a cardamom & banana ice-cream! Sounds so Indian, yet from a book of Scandinavian recipes. It must be delicious – both the book & the food in it!
    It was lovely browsing your blog, Kavey! It's such a warm, forthright space. I really enjoyed myself.
    Thanks for dropping by my blog, and for your lovely comments 🙂

    Reply
  6. Kavey

    Chloe, yes cardmom and marzipan is making me drool!

    HH, let me know what you think?

    Pia, thank you and “warm, forthright” is a wonderful description, it's how I'd love to be thought of, both in terms of the blog and me as an individual. Wow, you're a bit canny!

    Reply

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